Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain.

Politicians Can’t Do Anything Right; Hey I Have A Great Idea–Let’s Give Politicians More Power

List of Tea Party grievances:

-Big gummint regulation

-Taxes

-Black socialist President hellbent on destroying Our Way Of Life

-Being Able to Choose Our Own Senators…?

Until recently, hardly anyone ever bothered with the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which, if you do not know, is the one that gives you the right to vote for your United States senator, rather than allowing state legislators to choose a senator for you.

But then came the rise of the Tea Party movement, whose members in several states have been calling for repealing the amendment — and making something of a political mess in the process.

To be fair, on the to-do list of the Tea Party types, the idea ranks well behind calls to curtail spending and roll back taxes.

And yet, as the blog Talking Points Memo reported, the proposal recently became an issue in pivotal House campaigns in Idaho and Ohio, where two of the Republican Party’s most highly recruited candidates got caught up in the moment and declared themselves for repeal, only to try to back off from it later. In Idaho, the candidate in question, Vaughn Ward, lost his primary to a more steadfast anti-17ther.

It is an odd stance, to be sure. (If you really want to start repealing amendments, why not go after the Third Amendment, the one that outlaws the forcible quartering of soldiers in peacetime? Would anyone really mind letting a few cadets stay the night?) But the idea is worth a more serious examination, if only to try to understand the forces that would lead a group of politically engaged Americans to demand the curtailment of their own franchise.

What on earth? Is this just completely outta left field or what? I find myself unable to connect this to any other part of their ideology, even taking into account the fact that most everything they seem to believe is based on some horseshit spewed down the puke funnel by a Limbaugh type. Are they now picking their issues by throwing darts at the Constitution?

“Direct democracy is the worst form of government possible,” says Howard Stephenson, a Republican state senator from Utah who has pushed for repeal, “because it relies on 60-second sound bites and the ability of the ad firm that can best make an impression on the voters.”

Awww how cute, the little state senator thinks he knows what a direct democracy is! Hey you know what else eliminates any problems with those damn unwashed masses voting irresponsibly? A monarchy! Now let’s see these Tea Party folks either get behind a New Royalist Movement or shuttheirfuckingmouthsalready.

So Mr. Stephenson, in light of the fact that we do not live in ancient Athens would you wanna take another swing at that one?

Meta

I like the naked self-interest of a state legislator clumsily trying to explain why state legislators should once again be allowed the opportunity to sell Senate seats to their friends/business associates/cronies/whatever. It’s like he’s not even trying.

Actually! Fuck, come to think of it maybe he isn’t misinformed about direct democracy. Maybe he knows damn well what he’s saying and is doing it so that he “isn’t lying” etc. “Oh well I never said representative democracy was bad!” So fuckin potentially insidious.